Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffick with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave * ?

Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
Which, used, lives thy executor to be.

V.

Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very saine,
And that unfair, which fairly doth excell";
For never-resting time leads summer on"
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap check'd with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snow'd, and bareness every where3:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:

4 What acceptable AUDIT canst thou leave ?] So, in Macbeth : "To make their audit at your highness' pleasure." STEEVENS.

5 Those HOURS, &c.] Hours is almost always used by Shakspeare as a dissyllable. MALONE.

6 And that UNFAIR, which fairly doth excell;] And render that which was once beautiful, no longer fair. To unfair, is, I believe, a verb of our author's coinage. MALONE.

7 For never-resting TIME LEADS SUMMER ON-] So, in All's Well That Ends Well:

"For, with a word, the time will bring on summer.” STEEVENS.

8 Beauty o'er-snow'd, and BARENESS every where :] Thus the quarto, 1609. The modern editions have

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· barrenness every where."

In the 97th Sonnet we meet again with the same image: "What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

"What old December's bareness every where! MALONE.

But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet, Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet 8.

VI.

Then let not winter's ragged hand9 deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some phial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.

1

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:

Then what could death do, if thou should'st depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?

Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest, and make worms thine

heir.

VII.

Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age2,

8 But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,

Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.] This is a thought with which Shakspeare seems to have been much pleased. We find it again in the 54th Sonnet, and in a Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I. Sc. I. MALONE.

9 -let not winter's RAGGED hand-] Ragged was often used as an opprobrious term in the time of our author. See p. 156, n. 8. MALone.

1 That USE] Use here signifies usance. See vol. vii. p. 47, MALONE.

n. 4.

3

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage 3 ;
But when from high-most pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,
Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

VIII.

Musick to hear, why hear'st thou musick sadly
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly?
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married 3, do offend thine ear,

2 And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age,] Perhaps our author had the sacred writings in his thoughts: 66 - in them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." MALONE.

3 Yet mortal looks ADORE his beauty still,

Attending on his GOLDEN pilgrimage ;] So, in Romeo and

Juliet:

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Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun
"Peer'd forth the golden window of the east-."

MALONE.

4 Musick to hear, &c.] O Thou, whom to hear, is musick, why, &c.

I have sometimes thought Shakspeare might have writtenMusick to ear, &c. i. e. thou, whose every accent is musick to the ear. So, in the Comedy of Errors:

"That never words were musick to thine ear." Hear has been printed instead of ear in the Taming of the Shrew; or at least the modern editors have supposed so. vol. v. p. 407, n. 1. MAEONE.

5 If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

See

By unions MARRIED,] So, in Romeo and Juliet, quarto, 1599:

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou should'st bear.
Mark, how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each, by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming

one,

Sings this to thee, "thou single wilt

IX.

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,

prove none."

That thou consum'st thyself in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow, and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind.
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend,
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unus'd, the user so destroys it.

"Examine ev'ry married lineament,

"And see how one another lends content."

Again, in Troilus and Cressida :

"The unity and married calm of states-."

Milton had perhaps these lines in his thoughts when he wrote:

6

"And ever against eating cares

Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

"Married to immortal verse,

"Such as the meeting soul may pierce,

"In notes with many a winding bout

"Of linked sweetness long drawn out."

MALONE.

like a MAKELESS wife ;] As a widow bewails her lost husband. Make and mate were formerly synonymous. So, in Kyng Appolyn of Thyre, 1510: “ Certes, madam, I sholde have great joy yfe ye had such a prynce to your make."

Again, in The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: 'Betwixt the armes of me, thy perfect-loving make."

66

MALONE.

No love toward others in that bosom sits,

That on himself such murderous shame commits".

X.

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thyself art so unprovident.

Grant if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,

But that thou none lov'st, is most evident;
For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate,
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire;
Seeking that beateous roof to ruinate,

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!

Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself, at least, kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self, for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

XI.

As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
Thou may'st call thine, when thou from youth

convertest.

7 That on himself such murderous SHAME COMMITS.] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"And here is come to do some villainous shame
"To the dead bodies." MALONE.

8 Seeking that beauteous roof to RUINATE, &c.] metaphor of which our author is peculiarly fond. Comedy of Errors :

"Shall love in building grow so ruinate?" Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

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O thou, that dost inhabit in my breast,

"Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
"Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
"And leave no memory of what it was.

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This is a So, in The

Repair me with thy presence, Silvia." STEEVEns.